“Every Day Gun Totting Fool” and the Value of Life

I’m in political punditry business- what this means is that I get called a lot of names. Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re downright mean, but sometimes they just leave me completely perplexed. On one occasion I encountered a student training to be a youth pastor. He came over to the SL4GR table while I was on my lonesome and we just started chatting. I don’t want to call him downright awkward, but I could tell he was uncomfortable with the idea of owning a firearm.

“I can’t imagine pulling the trigger” he said with a trembling false smile, “I don’t want my children exposed to weapons at all, I value human life too much. I just don’t want to be some gun totting fool ya’know?”

No bro, I don’t know!

Now this is something I encounter a lot here at LU, another ultra-pious attempt to legitimize “Christian pacifism” as I call it. Now I’m not going to pretend to be a religious scholar, but you can go see it yourself, there are loads and loads of sections within scripture where the Lord prepares us for not just spiritual warfare, but direct violence. The narrative that gun owners don’t value human life is also ridiculous, because I’m not like these ultra loud conservatives you see online showing off their guns saying “terrorist come get me” trying to start an argument with their liberal buddies about how hard core they are. Something I was taught in the Army early on was that sometimes we must take life in order to preserve life. For those who want to take the Biblical aspect out of violence, I’ll even use a different example- the Buddhist – because c’mon, unless it’s a Kung Fu movie, no one’s gonna pick a fight with a monk right?

As the Dalai once said, “if someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.” It’s that simple, even the Buddhists get it. In fact, my Grandmother is Buddhist, and very soon she will possibly be investing in a firearm herself because of the cartel crime wave in Arizona. Because my Grandmother is considering buying a gun, does that mean she doesn’t have a respect for life? No, it’s because she values her life just as much as anyone else’s she is willing to defend it. Don’t hurt people and don’t take their stuff, it doesn’t get more basic than that.

I don’t want to ever pull out my firearm, but I refuse to let criminals and sycophantic despots slaughter innocent people. I even go as far as to say real pro-lifers should conceal carry, but that’s just me…

I value life- I value life so much I am willing to bear arms to defend it. I’m willing to take life to protect life if the situation knows no other scenario for peace. I’m willing to justify that before the Lord.